By: LARRY MAIER
More than two-dozen parents of students in Baldwin elementary schools have told the school board they believe that changes to learning-center, library and reading programs rumored to be under consideration by the district would detract from enrichment opportunities for average and above-average students while focusing on weaker readers.
About 25 Brookside and Meadow School parents attended the June 12 meeting of the school board to inform Superintendent Kathy Weiss that they had learned of alleged changes through a "very reliable source" and would be strongly opposed to their implementation.
However, Deborah Martin, principal of Milburn School and a member of the committee charged with making suggestions for changes to the district's learning center and reading programs, believes the parents have been misled.
Martin, in a telephone conversation three days after the meeting, said that parents have heard some incomplete information about the changes, which may have leaked from the committee part-way through deliberations.
Martin denied parents' charges that the changes being recommended will cater to children having trouble meeting state standards, at the expense of other students.
"That's just not the case," Martin said. "There probably will be small changes in some buildings, but I don't believe the average child's program will suffer. We are watching very carefully that the reading instruction we present in this district brings every student beyond where they are."
Dorinda Spinelli, a mother of three in the district, said that if the administration goes forward with the alleged recommendations, they would be, in effect, saying to many parents: "Your kids are doing well enough and we don't need to concentrate on them."
The district would not release to the Herald the specific recommendations being made. But Martin said that all of the district's efforts in the past few years, like the institution of challenging "core titles" that are read by all students, are geared to help average and above-average readers improve, just as much as they are to help weaker readers meet state standards.
One of the parents' main concerns is the allocation of each school's reading teacher's time. They have heard that only students with reading difficulties will spend specialized time with a certified reading teacher.
"We'd like to continue to improve services for all children; we don't want them lost," said Saundra Chisolm, president of the Brookside PTA, who has a second-grade student at Brookside and another child in the middle school. "This is how failing districts start, by taking away services."
But Martin said that the parents are mistakenly equating "pullout programs" -- where students leave their regular classrooms to do remedial work -- with reading enrichment.
"To quantify the number of times a reading teacher interacts with a child as the only time they will benefit from a reading program is where I think the parents have gone wrong," Martin said.
According to district spokesperson Trish Hughes, the superintendent has read the recommendations, is studying them and will make a decision on implementation before the 2001-2002 school year.
The next school board meeting is Thursday, July 5, at the District Office on Hastings Street.
